Saina, who won the Thailand Open Grand Prix Gold event Sunday, will go into Friday's match with confidence. She leads Shixian 2-1 in their head-to-head record and most recently beat the World No.4 in straight games to win the Swiss Open in March.

Another Indian, P.V. Sindhu takes on Germany's Juliane Schenk later in the day.

Meanwhile, India's highest-ranked men's player Ajay Jayaram lost his second round match to Dionysius Hayom Rumbaka of Indonesia 15-21, 14-21.

Parupalli Kashyap will face top seed Chen Long of China later Thursday evening.